Monthly Archives: February 2011

What happens to your digital remains after you die? Your Facebook account, pictures uploaded to a photo sharing site, iTunes purchases — the memories we share online and the assets we store on computers don’t disappear after we’re gone, but granting access to them isn’t something most people think about even when they’re working with a qualified estate planner.

The subject of death in the world of social networks is raising new questions. What do you do with a loved one’s digital holdings like posts, blog items and photos? How long should those items, or even memorial pages, remain floating around the Internet? And what legal rights do survivors have in dealing with these affairs?

The questions are so numerous and confusing and painful that a cottage industry has sprung up to help those who must grapple with them.

The San Francisco Human Services Agency notified about 2,400 Medi-Cal beneficiaries and the federal government about a breach of protected health information, including Social Security numbers.

“We learned on December 7, 2010, that a former employee of SF-HSA removed documents with confidential client information from SF-HSA and took them home,” according to the agency’s patient notification letter. “The former employee also e-mailed some documents to her home computer between 2006 and 2009 and shared some documents with her attorneys and union representatives as part of a legal action. We have recovered all of the documents and ensured that all copies have been destroyed or returned to SF-HSA. We have also obtained a court order prohibiting any disclosure or unauthorized use of the information in the legal matter.” Continue reading →